Zanteogo wrote:
I suppose if I could, I would hold my nose and vote Hillary. Lesser of the evils that have any chance of actually winning...

Um, are you aware of everything concerning her? She released highly classified information during the last debate.

Lesser of the evils.

She is horrible. Clearly a corporate puppet who does what her big business masters tell her.

Trump is a loud mouth jerk who just says what ever the current crowd wants to hear, regardless of how strange it is. He is in the habit of suing people who make fun of him. If you sing his praises you are the best person in the world, If you question him at all you are scum. The party he is running for wants turn back progress made on gay and lesbian rights, decriminalizing pot and bringing America more in line with the other developed countries when it comes to health care.

Again, Hillary is horrible. She is better than Trump however, and the others have no real chance of winning. She will at least probably try to keep the status quo.

Zanteogo wrote: I'm also not a fan of IRC because I usually multi-task and I find with IRC makes this difficult.

I never thought I would bother with IRC, Zanteogo, but the immediacy of the medium is much more informative and less formal than the forums. I've never been the master of multitasking so it's not a problem for me.

From what I've gathered, most people who support Trump seem to like him mostly because he isn't part of the establishment. This means that there might be a chance that something actually gets done in the 4 to 8 years that he would have if elected into office. His goal is to bring jobs back to America by lowering taxes and negotiating better trade deals. Trump also believes in a secure boarder which would prevent or at least considerably hinder illegal immigrants who are taking jobs that Americans could be doing.

There is currently one vacancy in the supreme court, but two additional openings could occur within the next 4 to 8 years. These judges are appointed by the president and can serve for life. Trump has stated that he will appoint conservative judges who will rely on the constitution of the United States for making their decisions. Hillary has had two debates to say the same and has not agreed on this point.

Yes, I know how bad some of the things Trump has said are and I also understand that he has apologized publicly for his statements. Hillary has been caught lying, yet has never apologized for her lies.

I hope the above information does not anger anyone, I'm just trying to state facts here and keep my personal opinions out of this as much as possible.

BFett wrote:From what I've gathered, most people who support Trump seem to like him mostly because he isn't part of the establishment.

Though this is normally a bonus in my view too, just because someone isn't part of the establishment doesn't mean they will make a good leader. He's not the normal clone the republican party has put forward, I will give them that.

BFett wrote:This means that there might be a chance that something actually gets done in the 4 to 8 years that he would have if elected into office. His goal is to bring jobs back to America by lowering taxes and negotiating better trade deals. Trump also believes in a secure boarder which would prevent or at least considerably hinder illegal immigrants who are taking jobs that Americans could be doing.

Obama tried and failed to get stuff done, mostly because the current American system is very "anti-change". Obama had to settle on making small tweaks here and there.
Trump negotiating better deals entails breaking and walking away from current trade deals and re-negotiating already set deals. Basically giving the rest the world the finger and trying to make them to bend to America "or else". It won't work.
Trumps idea of a more secure boarder is ok and all, but there are already massive efforts in place to do this. His talk of a "wall" is silly and only makes him look like a fool. Perhaps it was a metaphoric wall, but it was never actually presented that way. Again, it's ok to try to make American boarders more secure, but how? Dumping a ton of money at it? (oh, that's right.. he plans on making Mexico pay for it...)
American's economy has (for better or worse) become depended on illegal immigrants, mostly in the farm sector. Should this have been allowed for the many years it has? Perhaps not. However, suddenly removing this cheap labor would tank everything. I agree that something needs to be done, but it will need to be done slowly and carefully.

BFett wrote:There is currently one vacancy in the supreme court, but two additional openings could occur within the next 4 to 8 years. These judges are appointed by the president and can serve for life. Trump has stated that he will appoint conservative judges who will rely on the constitution of the United States for making their decisions. Hillary has had two debates to say the same and has not agreed on this point..

I'm up in the air on this one. A conservative judge means holding back change. If Trump is out to shake the system up and change things for the better, would a conservative judge just hold this back?

BFett wrote:Yes, I know how bad some of the things Trump has said are and I also understand that he has apologized publicly for his statements. Hillary has been caught lying, yet has never apologized for her lies.

He apologized for the grabbing p*ssy comments.
However, watching him debate is just painful. He will be asked why he said something. "I didn't say that". It will be pointed out that he clearly said it and it was recorded. "Nope."
It's funny, people will pick apart Hillary for some of her lies, but she doesn't just act like she never said it. Trump tends to say all kinds of crazy stuff, but can't back his own crazy words. He will just flat of deny saying them.

BFett wrote:I hope the above information does not anger anyone, I'm just trying to state facts here and keep my personal opinions out of this as much as possible.

Healthy political debate is good! By all mean, give your personal opinions, (but be prepared to back them)

There is also the whole issue with the republican party being anti-gay, anti-pot and stomping on the separation of church and state. Trump does have a plus as most of his own party dislikes him, so if he gets in he may not push the "good olde racist, homophonic and christian America" agenda.

Again, I'm not American. Perhaps I don't see everything someone who lives in America all the time does. However, I also have an outside view of things. (somewhat, we have been culturally taken over by America ages ago)

Last edited by Zanteogo on Sun Oct 23, 2016 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd like to point out that you've missed out one very important option from your poll. But first, a few comments:

By voting for Hillary Clinton, you are signalling to future candidates that in order to capture your vote, they need to be more like Hillary Clinton.
By voting for Donald Trump, you are signalling to future candidates that in order to capture your vote, they need to be more like Donald Trump.
By voting for Gary Johnson, you are signalling to future candidates that in order to capture your vote, they need to be more like Gary Johnson.
By voting for Jill Stein, you are signalling to future candidates that in order to capture your vote, they need to be more like Jill Stein.
By null voting (or a vote of no confidence, a spoiled ballot etc.), you are signalling to future candidates that in order to capture your vote, they need to not be like any of those currently running.

And by not voting, you are signalling to future candidates that they do not need to change as you do not have a vote to capture.

When both candidates that have any chance are both as terrible as they are this time around, this is the best time to think about how you are voting. Rather than be concerned about which flavour of faeces you get to eat for the next four years, maybe vote so you don't have to keep eating faeces four years from now?

Don't vote for a candidate that's the lesser of evils, because that will invite more candidates of that breed of evil next time. Vote for a candidate you actually want, and if you don't want any of them, null voting is very much an option. Sure, it might make the worse option happen this time around; but your options next time will be better for it.

A good example of this is the UK. In the last couple of elections, third-party turnout has soared - in 2015, UKIP gathered 12.7% of all votes. Despite the voting system meaning they only took 1 of the 650 seats available, the fact that even early polls showed a high number of people voting UKIP forced David Cameron to offer an EU referendum, in order to recapture those who were changing their minds.

Those voting UKIP changed Conservative policies. In the same way, those voting SNP changed Labour policies. You don't have to vote for the lesser of evils; you can vote to make the next election's offerings better.

Personally, I would rather have someone who is incompetent, stupid, and evil, than someone who is intelligent and evil. So, in a binary election, I would have to choose Trump. But, I will likely vote for no one for the presidency or Evan McMullen and then vote for everyone else lower in the ballot. I can't endorse Trump or Clinton and so I will not do so with my vote.